


The Three Day Solution

by sachertortes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Creampie, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Knotting, Mating Cycles/In Heat, PWP, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Praise Kink, Romance, Smut, not even plot adjacent tbh, only the barest whiff of a plot, plot-flavored LaCroix if you will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 15:58:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sachertortes/pseuds/sachertortes
Summary: Darcy's current situation is as follows -Being on the run: badBeing on the run without suppressants: worseHaving to proposition the Alpha supersoldier she’s on the run with: The Worst.(Written for the 2019 Darcyland PromptkinSpice Challenge)





	The Three Day Solution

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the PromptkinSpice Challenge. I hoped to make it up to Cayenne-level but I'll let you be the judge ;) Also this takes place in an ABO universe and the sex scenes contains all of what that entails. Please read the tags carefully! Thank you and hope you enjoy! <3

“Darcy,” Bucky rumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Anyone ever told you you’ve got the worst damn timing?”

Darcy presses her face into her hands.

“Mmmgghg,” she mumbles in response, embarrassment creeping up her neck like a vine.

She _does _have the worst damn timing. Or at least her body does. She’d thought as much when she’d given the death glare to her empty foil packet of suppressants a couple days ago. But how could they have known that what was to be a short, easy mission to retrieve information would involve HYDRA? And that they’d have to go on the run?

Certainly not her.

Being on the run from the baddies means that time is of the essence and staying in one place for long, much less for a week during an unpartnered heat is dangerous. Not to mention the vulnerable state she’d be left in.

So, the only solution (as Darcy propositioned Bucky with in the most mortifying moment of her life, no less) was for someone to be her heat partner. That would take about three days, then they could get moving to a new location, and possibly never speak of it again. Ever.

She supposes it could be worse. To ask such a thing of Thor would be totally unthinkable, for instance. Barnes is single at least and from what she’s seen he’s a gentleman, albeit not a very talkative one. And yes, Bucky Barnes is the hottest Alpha she’d ever seen. But she also barely knows him. She suspects that he’d only tagged along on the mission to keep an eye on her as a newbie agent – probably as a favor to Thor. Well, she’s gonna get to know him a hell of a lot more after this that’s for sure, she thinks as she watches him sit down heavily on the bed.

There’s a little tremor in Bucky’s voice when he interrupts her thoughts. “It’s just…are you absolutely sure about this?”

“I am if you are. But, if you don’t want to, that’s totally fine y’know. I can wait it out,” Darcy offers, even though the thought of “waiting out” her heat for seven days without her vibrator or the comfort of her own nest made of her favorite blankets and scents fills her with dread. “We don’t have to – ”

“It’s not that at all!”

“Then do I smell bad or something? Jane said that she knew she and her college crush weren’t gonna happen when he smelled like boiled brussels sprouts to her, so…”

“No! Doll, trust me, you smell fine.”

“Fine,” Darcy repeats, nose wrinkling in skepticism.

“You smell wonderful, alright? Fuck, it’s – ” Bucky lets out an exasperated breath and roughly runs a hand through his hair. “I haven’t been with an Omega since before I shipped out, okay?”

“I heard it’s like riding a bike?” she jokes, weakly.

“The things I’ve done…I don’t think I’ve been around an unsuppressed Omega since…,” he trails off. The knuckles on his right hand are nearly white as he wrings his hands. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Bucky, I’ve basically been unsuppressed these past several days and you haven’t so much as raised your voice to me. Even when we’ve had to share super close quarters. Even when I spilled that slushie in the car and it smelled like syrup for days,” she explains. She considers it a victory when the corner of Bucky’s mouth ticks up minutely. “And since you’ve been back from Wakanda, you haven’t hurt an innocent person. Ever. Right?”

“…Right.”

“Well, there you go.” Silence is heavy between them. She sighs. “This has got to be the most uninspiring pre-sex talk, like, ever.”

He glances up at her from underneath dark lashes. With a humorless smile, he says, “But it’s the truth.”

“I know. And if you still don’t want to, I’ll completely understand. We hardly know each other and – “

“I’ll do it,” he interjects.

Darcy blinks, shocked. She was already wondering how to politely kick Bucky out onto the couch while she waited out her heat by herself on the only bed in the safehouse. “Well, thank you. For helping me.”

“Yeah. Happy to uh – help.”

Darcy’s unable to suppress a giggle. His tone is usually reserved for helping someone lug their groceries up a flight of stairs, not to fuck her six ways to Sunday through a heat.

The tops of Bucky’s cheeks are pink, but he huffs out an awkward laugh too.

“Alright, well. I wasn’t exactly planning on any of this,” Darcy says, crossing her arms over herself. “So I don’t have any condoms. But I _am _on birth control.”

Bucky nods, once, all business again. “Good. So am I.”

At her questioning look he continues. “Starklabs has been developing male birth control. It goes on the market next year.”

“Oh,” she replies. “Good. So there should be rules.”

“I agree,” Bucky says, then his voice goes all soft and earnest. “You say stop and I’ll stop.”

“Alright. And, there’s one more thing.” She can’t help but lay her palm protectively over the side of her neck and stares at him straight in the eyes, ready for a challenge. “Don’t bond me.”

To his credit, Bucky rears back a little, shocked and horrified. “I won’t! I’d never – I – “

“Just making those boundaries clear. No bonding, just the sex.” She takes a deep cleansing breath and nods towards the bathroom. “I’m gonna go wash this road grime off myself.”

Their little safehouse in the woods has running water but the pressure is abominably low. And the tiny dried-out cake of soap can barely make a lather. But after days on the road it might as well be the spa at the Four Seasons. She wants to stay in there forever and pretend it’s her 4-nozzle shower in Stark Tower but knows she’ll have to go back outside and face her heat (and heat partner) sooner rather than later.

Darcy emerges from the shower, clutching the thin towel to herself. Bucky’s sitting on the bed, brows furrowed as if in the middle of overthinking things. Behind him is a small pile of random towels and bedding. As meager as it is, Darcy heart gets all gooey at the realization that he’s gone through the cupboards and gathered all those things so she could make herself a nest.

As if on cue, her arousal beings to thrum demandingly under her skin.

She was hoping to at least get some clothes on and attempt conversation first, but her heat has other ideas. It washes over her like a wave of fever. She manages a gasp of his name and choked off moan. Her own heat and the steam from the bathroom close around her like a silk robe.

Immediately Bucky stands, towering over her as he stalks towards her, his movements slow but intent. Graceful, almost. Somewhere inside her, her hindbrain is telling her that this is what a predator looks like while stalking prey. She swallows audibly over a dry throat and when she licks her lips, Bucky’s ice blue eyes grow dark.

The low rumble of his answering growl makes her knees weak.

“Get on the bed, Darcy.”

So she does, shuffling onto the crumpled pile of cloth that she meant to shape into a passable nest. The old bedsprings creak in protest. Her hand is still holding the towel tight, something she only realizes when Bucky leans over to gently pry her fingers from it.

“Okay?” he asks, his eyes dark and soft as they meet hers. 

“Yeah…”

The towel falls open, and the air of the room is almost jarringly cool on her heated flesh. With every sensation multiplied, even the puckering of her nipples is enough to make her want to slide her own hand down between her legs. She squirms, desperate for some kind of friction. Briefly, she wonders what she looks like to him, pale and naked with tangles of dark, wet hair fanned around her. Does she looks as good to him as he does to her?

“Darcy,” he breathes, voice like smoky whiskey as he leans over her. “You’re so beautiful, Omega. Just perfect.”

“So are you.”

His face is so close to hers. She hasn’t been with anyone, much less an Alpha, in a longer time than she’d ever want to admit. Of course, her body is telling her that she needs orgasms and whole lot of them, but she’d somehow missed how intimate this whole heat sharing thing can be – rules or not. There are crinkle lines around his heavy-lidded eyes, and she traces her fingertips over the little dip in his chin. She’d always wanted to do that, ever since she’d met him nearly a year ago, wary and tired as he was just off the plane from Wakanda. The metal of his left palm is cool when he splays his fingers over her breast. He swipes his thumb over her peaked nipple and a line of pure want darts down to her pussy.

She’s slick already, her body readying itself. He caresses the dip in her waist, runs his knuckles over her inner thighs. The whole time he watches her with dark eyes, his own breaths coming quick and shallow. It’s good to have an Alpha’s hormones around her, simultaneously comforting and arousing – pushing her up and promising more.

“Please,” she whines, reaching for his belt only for her hands to be batted away. This is infuriating, _he’s _infuriating. Can’t he see how much she wants him, how she needs him?

“Shhhh, it’s alright sweetheart, I know you do,” Bucky soothes, answering her when she didn’t even know she’d been babbling. In an unconscious movement, he palms his clothed erection. It should be obscene, the prominent outline of his cock under that denim. But it only makes Darcy think of what that huge Alpha cock would feel like inside her. What it could do for her, how he will make her come.

Everything is becoming muddled, and the only clear thing anymore is the persistent throbbing between her legs and the burning, wet kisses Bucky is pressing down her torso.

He noses at her stomach, getting her squirming against the slightly rough towel. Everything, every bit of contact is heaven. When his blunt teeth nip gently at the soft flesh of her lower belly, she rethinks that. No, _this _is heaven. She reaches down to twist her fingers in his soft hair in anticipation.

“Bucky! C’mon, c’mon, _need _it…”

Bucky’s lips are soft on her thigh as he murmurs into her skin. He sounds as fevered as she feels.

“Gotta taste you first, gotta make it good for you.”

Large, firm hands push upwards on the backs of her thighs and the feeling of being open to him like this is so sweet, she can only obey.

Digging her heels into the mattress, she gasps out a series of what she hopes are affirmative noises. Yes, anything, anything. _Everything._

“Yeah?” he asks, looking up at her from between her spread thighs. His hair is mussed, brown locks tangled together and sticking up from where she’d apparently clutched at him.

She nods once, bottom lip between her teeth.

And she should feel embarrassed at how _exposed _she feels pinned under his hot gaze, with him looking at her like she’s the first and only Omega he’s seen in a hundred years, and he can’t wait to consume her. But she finds that she’s shameless with her urgency.

“Oh, _darlin’_,” Bucky croons, his breath fanning hot over her clit. Her belly clenches at the pet name. “This for me?”

He glides two fingers over her. Her slick is already sliding down her thighs and she whines, high and needy. She presses herself against the smooth adamantium of his hand, chasing any form of contact she can.

“Uh huh,” she answers, breathless.

“Mm, good,” he says, sending a pleasant shiver down her spine. She’s always loved a little praise during sex, likes to be good for her partner, likes that encouragement. He flashes a knife-sharp smile at her and she’s barely processing that before he drops his head down to lick a hard, wide stripe right over her slit.

“Fuck!” she swears, loud in the quiet of the room. Her head drops to the pillow.

Bucky takes that as a signal to continue. He’s got a steel grip on her thigh with one hand, which is perfect because when he slides two thick fingers inside her, she practically arches right off the bed. With crooked digits, he’s unerringly found that perfect spot inside her. He begins steadily fucking her with his fingers as his tongue is doing some sort of magic on her clit.

Darcy mewls the whole time, probably sounding like some bad Omega porno but she can’t bring herself to care. Not when this beautiful man has his mouth on her, alternately flicking and swirling his tongue around her plump clit, and his fingers are buried inside her, stretching her wider than her own fingers can.

Then, abruptly, everything stops. There’s only the ringing in her ears and the emptiness where she needs him most.

She whimpers. She was So. Very. Close. “Please, please.” She tries to push herself further onto his face, tries to take that pleasure for herself any way she can.

His hands clamp her back down on the bed.

“_No_. Not yet.”

When he raises his head, he’s looking every bit the smug Alpha. Her slick is shiny on his chin, and he’s _licking his chops _she thinks, and her lust threatens to consume her.

Her very own Big Bad Wolf. And, for now at least, she gets to have him all to herself.

“You’re amazing,” he tells her, like he wasn’t the one who drove her to insanity with his lips and tongue.

In a flash, Bucky is pulling his t-shirt over his head and Darcy stares hungrily at his big shoulders and toned torso. Raised scar tissue ribbon out from where his metal arm connects to his shoulder. The adamantium gleams, emanating power and strength even in the dim yellow lamplight. She’s practically drooling when he shoves his pants and black briefs off his hips, and her eyes follows the dark trail of hair leading from his navel to his long, thick cock - ready and all for her.

It’s gonna be a deliciously tight stretch, to say the least. The thought of him inside her already gives her a phantom ache. She can’t wait.

She turns over somewhat clumsily on wobbly hands and knees, presenting prettily for her Alpha.<strike></strike>

From behind her, comes a low, approving growl. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle and she spreads her knees further apart, her body responding to his growl as if it were a physical touch.

There’s a dip in the bed as his muscular thighs bracket hers. Her pussy clenches in anticipation. The heavy, warm weight of him is draped over her and her chest swells with satisfaction. Yes, her Alpha is here and he’s gonna make everything better.

But instead of driving inside immediately as any red-blooded Alpha would when presented with a wet and willing Omega, Bucky cups a gentle hand over her jaw and turns her face to his.

“What are your rules about kissing?” he whispers, breath ragged and gaze already drifting to her lips.

After everything, _this _is what gets her blushing – that he wants to kiss her.

“Kissing is – is a yes.”

The angle is a bit awkward, and distantly she’s a little incredulous that this is how their first kiss happens, but he still gets her heart tripping over itself just the same. He kisses her deeply, greedily, like he’s drinking her down. She does the same right back, cataloguing how his bottom lip is surprisingly plush, how his tongue pushes against hers, trying to commit everything to memory. She can taste herself on him. Her own pleasure is salt and musk on his tongue and she chases the taste of him underneath.

The scent of his answering Alpha hormones fills her senses. Everything surrounding them is heat, and want, and Bucky’s own warm cedar and cinnamon. His large frame drapes over her protectively like she’s his and his alone.

When they pause for breath, he nuzzles at the back of her neck and goosebumps erupts all over her arms from the prickle of his stubble. She arches her neck for him, trusting and pliant. Bucky rewards her handsomely. He presses a random series of soft, fleeting kisses and bruising sucks to her, surely marking her in some way. But she wants it. She wants so badly to be marked by him. Darcy can only whimper under the assault and clench at the disheveled sheets in anticipation.

From behind her, Bucky shuffles as he takes himself in hand. He slides experimentally through her slick, teasing and readying them both.

She attempts to thrust back on him to tell him to get on with the show.

“Be good,” he admonishes, firm and commanding.

When she’s still, he drags his length along her slit once more and then she feels him – large and smooth and hot – nudging at her entrance. She can’t help a bitten off moan. He presses inside, torturing them both with long, slow thrusts until his cock is finally seated all the way.

He is wonderfully, impossibly huge, pressing on all the right places. She thinks she can feel him even as she breathes, feel his cock demand a space for itself inside her.

“That’s it, sweetheart. You’re taking me so well. _Fuck_, you’re so – ” his statement ends in a grunt as he ruts into her shallowly once, twice, unable to help himself.

Darcy whimpers. “More…”

Immediately, the pace he sets is fast and hard. Darcy loves every second of it, even as one particularly hard thrust has her dropping onto her forearms and panting into the sheets. The change in angle means that he’s somehow even deeper than before, raking over her g-spot with every glide in and out. She’s close again, the tight coil of her climax threatening to snap at any moment. If he stops, she’ll scream she’s sure of it.

“I could just eat you up, Omega. All these pretty little noises you make,” Bucky snarls from behind her. He leans down to lick and suck hard on the side of her neck, over her bonding gland. She gives him another little noise, a soft high-pitched thing that’s punctuated with the clutch of her pussy around his dick. “That’s it, that’s so good, sweetheart.”

When he reaches down to rub at her poor, neglected clit, she practically cries in relief. He begins sliding through her copious slick to take her bundle of nerves between the vee of two fingers. He matches the strokes of his fingers to his cock, firm and demanding. Relentless.

When his teeth scrape the back of her neck, she’s done for.

She comes hard, sparks lighting up within her and shattering. Her body clenches tightly around his cock, milking him.

A wail begins at the back of her throat and she’s unable to stop a ragged cry from escaping her when she feels the base of his cock expand inside her. She’s spread on it, throbbing where she stretches to accommodate his Alpha knot.

She gasps his name and gushes even more slick, her walls fluttering around the knot inside her.

“Oh, oh fuck,” she rasps, as he whispers filthy encouragements into her ear.

Whether she comes again, or if it’s just a continuation of her previous climax Darcy doesn’t know, but when he’s finally locked inside her, she can’t help but clench down on him. His knot is swollen thick, and everything between her legs feels tighter, _fuller,_ than she ever thought possible. He groans as he empties into her, giving her small lazy grinds even as he pulses, hot and seemingly endless.

Darcy has only a fuzzy comprehension of Bucky rolling them gently onto their sides. She’s still knotted and he’s spooned up behind her, their breaths harsh but slowing. Sated for now and incredibly tired, she pillows her head on his arm and lets the steady movements of his fingers carding through her hair lull her into a doze.

They both wake sometime later and Bucky makes her drink two glasses of water and eat a protein bar. He doesn’t reprimand her when she burrows back into bed immediately after, only climbs in beside her and tucks the blanket over them both.

The next time she wakes, Darcy squints against the dingy sunlight filtering through the old, threadbare curtains. She’s uncertain whether it’s morning or afternoon. What she is certain about is that there’s definitely a crick in her neck and that she should’ve taken up pilates before bedding a supersoldier. Thankfully, while there’s a stickiness between her legs, she’s not sore at all.

“Be right back,” she whispers to Bucky after he stirs when she leaves the bed.

One metal thumbs up emerges from the blanket.

She grabs a towel from the messy pile of cloth they’d kicked onto the floor and heads for bathroom.

In the bathroom mirror, she can barely recognize the woman staring back at her. Her hair is bedraggled and her lips are swollen from kisses. Bucky had sucked dark pink circles into her skin, but they’re distinctly absent over her bonding gland. Even in the throes of passion, he’d been careful.

A soft knock at the door interrupts her inspection.

“Come in,” she says. Bucky, naked and unashamed as she is, comes to stand behind her.

“Was about take a shower,” she tells him. His rumpled appearance matches hers nicely, she thinks with a smile. There are four red scratches running down his bicep. When did she do that?

“That’s a shame,” he answers, running a knuckle down her spine. Bucky gives her mischievous look in the mirror. “I like fucking into you when you’re already dripping from me.”

Darcy’s face goes beet red even as her pussy clenches in want. “_Bucky_! Ohmygod.”

She doesn’t miss the smile he presses into her hair.

“Have I told you yet that you smell – ,” he nips at the curve of her shoulder, sending a jolt through her, “– _delicious_.”

“What – what do I smell like?” she asks. “Someone said strawberries, once.”

Bucky’s grip on her waist tightens possessively at the mention of another.

“That’s too simple,” he answers, after a moment. He tucks his nose into a spot behind her ear. “You smell …_lush. _Like strawberries, but not that fake stuff. Real strawberries.” His hand sweeps up and down her side, as heat begins to bloom within her once more. He rolls a pink nipple between his fingers. It’s none too gentle but it’s just what she needs, and she gasps at the sensation. “Summer strawberries,” he babbles into her hair, as he begins to roll his hips against her. “Warm from the sun and ripe for the taking. You ready to go again, sweetheart? Can I have more of you?”

“Bucky, _yes._”

The glide of his cock into her pussy is easy and smooth with both her slick and his come. In one long stroke he’s inside her. Trapped between him and the sink, she’s unable to do anything but take him, his cock inside her and his fingers expertly plucking at her nipple.

“You smell so good, darlin’. But…I like when you smell like me,” he confesses, a sly look on his face. He leans down to give her an open-mouthed kiss at her neck, over her thrumming pulse point. “I’d keep you smellin’ like me all the time, if I could. Then everyone would know - everyone would know that I’m your Alpha. D’you want that too, little Omega?”

Her entire body fizzes like good champagne. “Yes. I want it, want you.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” he asks, as he reaches down to dip his index finger to the slick place where they’re joined.

“Nngh,” she manages when he drags that finger up to tease around the swollen nub of her clit.

“You’d like it if I came inside you. I’ll mark you. Make you mine.”

She spreads her legs slightly as he fucks roughly into her once, twice, drawing from her a strangled cry. She loves the way his cock spreads her, how his fucking rides that line between just right and too much.

“You’re so good_,” _Bucky groans. “Takin’ me so well.”

Darcy nearly keens at the praise, she thinks she’d fly off into the stratosphere if he lets her. She’s grounded only by Bucky’s hands digging into her hips and his cock pistoning into her. Darcy’s lids begin to droop in pleasure.

“_No_.” Bucky’s ice blue eyes glitter with dark promise when she meets them in their reflection. “Keep those eyes open and look at us, there in the mirror.”

She does. Bucky is behind her with his muscles gleaming with sweat and rippling with the exertion of fucking her. She claws at the smooth porcelain of the sink. It wobbles dangerously but doesn’t break.

She meets his eyes in their reflection and he rewards her with a sharp snap of his hips.

“Fuck!” Darcy exclaims, her breath fogging the mirror.

“Yeah, eyes open,” he continues, over his own feral growl. He is panting warm into her hair, nosing at the damp locks behind her ear. “Are you watching?”

“Yessss…”

“Yes, _what_?_” _he demands, hips slamming into her again and nearly stealing her breath.

Darcy licks at her parched lips and manages to cobble words together to answer. “Yes, Alpha, I’m watching.”

“There’s my sweet Omega. I want you to see,” he says. He whispers directly into her ear, “Want you to watch yourself take my knot.”

The statement lights up her nerve endings and her breath catches in her throat.

She struggles to obey and through heavy-lidded eyes she watches how her breasts bounce lewdly with every thrust. How sweat beading at their brows gleam. The tight slide of him inside her almost makes her lose it several times. Eventually, despite her best efforts, her eyes slip shut. Bucky doesn’t seem to mind, only keeps fucking hard into her, and rubbing her g-spot over and over. The medicine cabinet rattles warningly with their enthusiasm.

“Make me come,” she pleads. “Pleasepleaseplease, I need it!”

“So beautiful,” Bucky gasps, even as he pumps viciously into her. “_Now_,” he demands. He drags his hand between her legs and rubs hard and fast at her clit. “Come now.”

Her orgasm washes over her in a wave. She comes gasping his name and trembling in his arms, a galaxy of stars bursting in her vision. Bucky groans and buries himself deep. He follows her, shuddering and gripping her hard as his knot fills again.

She can feel it when he comes, a liquid rush of heat inside her. He’s filling her up, she muses, and soon she’ll be dripping just the way he likes her to be. The thought makes her come again, her pussy fluttering rhythmically around his knot.

“Augh, _fuck!_” Bucky moans at the sensation. He reaches down with one hand, fingers pressing at her soft lower belly holding her tight against him while she tries to brace herself on shaky arms.

Bucky nuzzles her till their breathing slow and their heartbeats stop racing.

Darcy giggles.

“Should’ve thought about this position before the sex,” she informs him. “Since we’re gonna be here for a while.” She punctuates her statement with a clutch of her pussy around his knot.

Bucky groans, as he pulses more into her. “You’re killin’ me, doll.”

“Don’t die yet,” she says, still slightly breathless. “I wasn’t kidding about that shower!”

They shower quickly, knowing that they only have a little time before her body demands yet more sex.

She downs two water bottles in quick succession and when she finds Bucky’s t-shirt crumpled near the nightstand, she puts it on. Someone up there is surely looking out for her because when Bucky notices her in his pilfered shirt, he just goes shirtless.

After rummaging, they find some dodgy-looking MREs in a cupboard. In the living room, they wolf down mediocre chicken and rice while sitting next together on a tattered avocado green couch straight out of the 1970s. But Bucky doesn’t stop smelling like jittery, distressed Alpha until she’s sitting in his lap and letting him hand feed her bits of lemon cake from an aluminum pouch.

She’s much too worn-out to string words together so in thanks she pats at his damp, tangled hair. He purrs under her touch, unapologetically scenting at her wrists. That, apparently, is enough to get her going again and they both end up discovering that whoever furnished the safehouse managed to pick out a particularly sturdy couch.

When she teases him about his supersoldier strength, he shows off by fucking her against the wall. He’s a good sport, though, and the next time he lets himself be pinned underneath an Omega as she rides him to a shattering climax.

When he takes her slow and gentle, though, that’s the worst. Certainly not in technique. Darcy had pretty much admitted to herself after that time in front of the mirror that he’s the best sex she’d ever had. She was trying to tell herself not to get too attached because this was a onetime deal. A friend’s favor for a friend.

And that is hard to do when that “friend” was stroking into her and tenderly sweeping her hair off her damp brow to leave little kisses that feel like flower petals on her skin. When that friend encourages them to sleep twined together like strands of DNA.

In what she thinks is the morning, Darcy hastily dresses (in her own clothes this time) and is investigating what sort of abomination years old instant coffee might taste like, when the metallic grinding noises of the shower’s old pipes go on again.

Bucky emerges from the bedroom, clothed in a worn grey t-shirt and his tac pants, roughly rubbing at his damp hair with a towel. He gives her a sheepish look at her instant meal – coffee and oatmeal.

“Heats over, I’m pretty sure,” Darcy says, forcing casualness. Her thoughts are successfully veering from, “sex and knotting” to “shower, food, and rest”.<strike></strike>

Bucky nods, and winds and unwinds the towel in his hand. Walking over to busy himself with his duffel bag, he asks “Is it – I mean, are you…okay?”

Darcy locks her fingers and reaches her arms above her head, relishing the relief of a good stretch. Bucky’s eyes flick to her and then away. It’s so brief she wonders if he’d done it at all.

“I’m peachy,” she answers, inwardly frowning at the truth she is just realizing. Namely, that they are Compatible as fuck. He’d known when to feed her, when to let her rest. When her sleep cycle was erratic due to the heat, his changed to match hers. And yes, he knew exactly how to fuck her brains out. But she really didn’t like the thought of being Compatible with someone who can barely look at her now that they weren’t swamped in pheromones.

She scolds herself for the maudlin thoughts. Why can’t she just be grateful that he’s here for her? It’s not the freaking 1800s anymore, she reasons to herself as she shoves a spoonful of tasteless oatmeal into her mouth. Rare as it is, just because two people are Compatible doesn’t mean they have to get married or whatever.

Darcy can’t help herself. She glares at Bucky’s back where he’s hunched over his duffel bag. How could he seem to be taking everything so well while _her_ thoughts war inside her head like feral weasels?

“Looks like the team managed to round up the rest of that HYDRA cell,” he says, interrupting her thoughts. He holds his burner phone, a little wrinkle between his brows. His tone is back to mission focused. “We’re in the clear. Time to go home.”

Home. Home means her own shower, and her own bed, and her own food. And most importantly, getting some distance from the Alpha who’d jumbled up all these pesky feelings inside her.

She’s packed and ready to go in record time.

* * *

The first thing Darcy does when she gets back, is stock up on suppressants. She works in the labs with Jane, grabs lunch with the other scientists. She cleans her apartment top to bottom. She catches up on her favorite shows she missed, eating take-out alone on her couch.

She is absolutely _not _waiting for someone.

Okay, she is. So why is she so miffed when he shows up at her apartment door two weeks later?

“Uhhh, hi?”

Bucky, wearing a cozy-looking black hoodie and holding a bag in one hand, gives her a wide-eyed look like a startled deer.

“Hi,” he answers. His civil tone grates at her for some reason. “Sorry. Is this a bad time? I can go.”

“This isn’t a bad time,” Darcy sighs, apologetically. “Sorry I’m being weird. I wasn’t…expecting you. You don’t have to go.”

“Alright. Can I – “

“You didn’t come see me,” Darcy interjects, unable to stop herself. She winces. That sounded whiny. “I mean, after. You could’ve come by and said ‘hey, whassup’ or something. ‘Cause for a while there I thought it was ‘Wham, Bam, Thank you ma’am’.”

Bucky’s huff of laughter is laced with bitterness, and when she looks at him his cheeks are pink and he’s running a hand through his hair.

“About that, doll” he starts. Darcy crosses her arms over herself and leans on the doorframe. He sighs and the look he gives her reminds her of a cranky, wet alley cat. “Ah, fuck it. I was in rut, alright? Your heat, it pushed me into rut. Wasn’t fit for public consumption. So to speak.”

“Oh. Wow. So we’re like, really Compatible I guess.” She had a little more than an inkling but to have the confirmation from Bucky is another thing entirely.

“I thought we might have been,” Bucky says, shuffling his feet nervously.

“You’re not here just ‘cause we’re Compatible, right? Because I don’t want you to think you owe me anything after – ”

“No! No, although that’s…good – ”

“Good?” Her heart begins giving hopeful thumps in her chest. 

“Yeah.” He meets her gaze. “Sorta had my eye on you for a while. You always pick good movies for movie night. And I saw all that fancy computer stuff you did on the Salzburg mission, so I mentioned to Hill that you’d be good for this one.”

Darcy can’t help her raised eyebrows. He barely talks to her at movie night, preferring to hang with Steve or Sam and sit in the shadows. And the Salzburg mission was a good six months ago.

“But if I knew HYDRA was involved, I never would’ve put you in danger like that,” Bucky amends quickly.

Eventually, if everything goes how she hopes it does, she’s gonna have a conversation with him about how she can be trusted to take care of herself. Until then, it sounded like he had a little crush on her and she’s gonna hold onto that with both hands. Her eyes alight on the bulging bag he’s holding. Frigga help her, but she _is _curious.

“What’ve you got there?”

Bucky smiles. “Heard you liked those triple chocolate cherry cookies from that fancy bakery in town. And…a blanket? Sam said it’s ridiculous and old-fashioned, but it didn’t feel right not bringing you a – present.” Bucky clears his throat with a cough and holds the bag out to her. “Anyways. It’s cashmere. And blue. And it’s soft.”

Darcy’s heart hammers in her chest as she takes the bag from him. “Courting gifts?”

“Yes.”

The hopeful look on his face makes Darcy want to melt into an ecstatically happy puddle right there in her own doorway. Instead she makes grabby hands for the bag, making Bucky laugh as he hands it over.

Darcy peers inside. The tissue paper wrapped bundle on the bottom must be the blanket. On top of that is a large pastry box tied with a pretty satin bow.

“So…these are a lot of cookies,” she says, grinning up at Bucky. “You wanna come in? These are really good with coffee and I might need help finishing them.”

Bucky flashes a smile at her so bright and happy she can’t help but bask in its warmth.

“You know I’m always happy to help.”

**Author's Note:**

> Regular brain: real life  
Expanding brain: living in a world with actual superheroes  
Galaxy brain: male birth control
> 
> *looks around shiftily* This is the dirtiest thing I’ve ever written and my first ABO to boot. If you liked it, please let me know! <3 <3


End file.
